X Never, Ever Marks the Spot
by WritingAmateur
Summary: Archeologist/Professor Ishizu Ishtar is called upon by a mysterious employer to find the Millennium Items. Teaming up with recalcitrant CEO Seto Kaiba, Ishizu clashes with her rival Bakura as she learns the secrets of the Items and fights to keep them out of the wrong hands. Indiana Jones pastiche. Collaboration between WritingAmateur and Gweniveve-Skyes! Trustshipping.


She stood just outside the entrance of the sacred temple, senses heightened, vision sharpened and keen, that thrill of awe and discovery thrumming anew in her veins. The beautiful carved columns of the facade remarkably were preserved for their age, as were the relief figures rendered in rows along the outer walls. The trees that cradled the building amidst their thick, smooth trunks seemed to sigh in the faint breeze, the thick, ropy green vines brushing against the dusty ground humming like gentle whispers in her ears.

Boots emptied of any errant pebbles and re-laced, hair sensibly re-braided and pinned into place, a fresh layer of sweat on her face and arms cooling in the early chill of the morning. Tension coiling and flexing in her back, the muscles of her legs, the motions of her hands rapid but controlled as she adjusted the whip on her belt, checked the pocket zippers on her trousers, screwed the lid of her freshly-filled canteen shut before she fastened it in place beside the whip; Rebecca was back in the Jeep at the edge of the forest, waiting for Ishizu to radio in when she got the icon in hand and should start the vehicle up to commence the drive back to the others at larger archeological complex a few kilometers outside Siem Reap. Every last detail accounted for to the best of her ability.

Despite how many times she'd been in similar situations, this moment always managed to spark the fiercest kind of excitement in her. The routine of last-minute preparations was the breath before the leap, that last chance to refocus, to steel her mind before everything came down to action and reaction. These ancient structures, after all, were truly never meant for mere mortals like her. They were never meant to be dug up and explored and emptied thousands of years after those who had built them had passed on.

- _While finding the temple was surely not a picnic, getting to the sanctuary at its heart, even with a map, is going to be bloody difficult at best-_

Reaching inside her leather jacket, she withdrew the old roll of parchment one final time, making sure she had committed its details, faint as they were, to her mind's eye. There likely wouldn't be time to stop and check once inside the temple's walls-let alone much light to see anything by.

She lifted her wristwatch-communicator towards her mouth and tapped the screen twice, activating the audio link. "Rebecca?"

Her assistant's voice, with its easily excitable pitch audible despite her whispering, sounded back. "Yes, Professor?"

"I'm commencing entry. If I'm not back by sundown, please return to the larger site and get backup."

A slight pause as Rebecca clearly hesitated to think about the consequences of such a scenario. "Yes, Professor. Good luck!"

Tapping a few more times on the screen, Ishizu activated the tracker function, ensuring that the overall distance she would cover exploring the temple would be recorded for the rest of the team.

One final breath-one final sweeping gaze of the beautiful tableau before her-before she pulled the night-vision goggles hanging around her neck back onto her face, snapping them into place, and made her way towards the threshold of the temple.

The faint chatter of distant birds overhead flickered at the edge of her consciousness as she stepped lightly inside the imposing entryway, hearing her own shallow breathing loud in her ears as she pictured the path on the map in her pocket.

 _Straight ahead several meters, then come to a fork in the path-_

Unlike the similar temple she had prepared with back at the complex a few days prior, the floor of this one was a smooth carpet of moss-untouched, undisturbed-absent the slabs of stone and brick that had littered the ground, seemingly eager to trip her up. Still she moved cautiously, patiently, the sounds of the forest outside growing fainter and fainter, her arms extended before her to prevent any unforeseen collisions or obstacles.

She first glimpsed the wall in the sickly green light of the night-vision lenses, then confirmed its proximity as her fingertips brushed against relief carvings, indicating the first fork she'd seen in that lightest of ink drawings on the map.

 _Come to a fork in the path, then take the right-hand way, which immediately slopes downwards-_

Leaving her left hand on the wall to keep her sense of direction, she turned to face towards her right and immediately felt the air grow colder, drier, as the floor began to slope down at an angle of what felt like fifteen, sixteen degrees-she filed the figure in the back of her mind for the later report. The texture of the wall shifted as well, with the mossy ground seeming to creep upwards, covering more and more of the intricate stonework until the entire wall was blanketed in the soft stuff, leaving a fine film on her fingertips.

 _There will be a low entryway one meter high-approximately seven hundred paces down the path-_

What sounded like the hushed gurgling of a flowing body of water pricked up the hairs on the back of her neck, stopping her in her tracks as the moss beneath her hand suddenly grew… _damp_. Shifting her weight tentatively from one foot to the other, she heard the unmistakably unpleasant _squelch_ of dirt-turned-mud, that sighing, thoroughly unpleasant _oozing_ noise that meant only one thing-

- _the map was incomplete._

 _-there's water here-a stream-a current-_

-occupying the distance between her and what she was _sure_ had to be the entryway. The entryway that was now, clearly, completely _flooded_ with water, water that was now sinking through the material of her boots, murky and ice-cold-

-too wide for her to try and latch the whip onto something on the other side, a good several meters at _least_ -

 _Blast it all-_

-growing up in the driest deserts of Egypt had hardly left Ishizu with much love for swimming, to put it lightly-

 _-let alone without the proper tools-the breathing apparatus, the suit, any kind of gear that would have allowed me to handle this-_

Feeling her free hand clench into a fist, a fist she shoved into her pants pocket, willing it not to tremble, she rapidly considered her options. Turn around-retrace her steps, regroup-come back the next day with a bigger team, better supplies?

Or-

 _-I have to go ahead. I have to-_

-that dogged determination that had gotten her this far would just have to get her a little bit further.

Retreating several steps back up the slope, away from the edge of the water, Ishizu carefully took stock of her inventory, trying to ignore the careening stuttering in her chest. The map came out of her pocket-the ink wouldn't last a second in the water, she reasoned wryly-and rolled up the parchment, setting it down on the ground by the relief wall. The communicator she unfastened from her wrist, gritting her teeth in annoyance as she did so, because she wasn't going to take the chance of the damned thing not being waterproof. Tapping the screen errantly, knowing she wouldn't get much of a signal at this depth, she sighed with none of the patience of a martyr before tucking it inside the map. The goggles would just have to make it-as would the rest of her clothing-a shudder slicking its way down her spine as she imagined the discomfort of having to muck around in sodden clothes for _Gods_ know _how_ long-

 _-no matter. I'm going forward-_

She returned to where the ground was soaked once again, pressing the goggles into the skin around her eyes as if that would make them stay put, assessing the speed of the moving water.

 _Not too fast, not too fast-I'm certainly not a champion swimmer, but some breaststroke should be enough to get me through the doorway-_

 _-should be, indeed-_

Offering a mild invocation to some deity who had to be watching her from on high and enjoying a laugh at her expense, Ishizu took a few breaths to get her heart rate under control. Tentatively, she waded into the water and dipping below its surface, the chill slapping her cheeks blazingly raw.

The force of the current that had seemed rather mild only a moment ago punched her in the side with its unexpected force. Ishizu swallowed down the urge to resurface, to give up, propelling herself lower and lower until her feet hit solid ground- _thank the Gods-_

-extending a hand above her head, she found that with her boots planted firmly on the briny earth, the tip of her middle finger just barely pushed through the surface of the water, allowing her to internally release a sigh of relief-she could come back up for air as needed, so far-

 _Now just to make my way across-_

Kicking her legs behind her in a way that surely resembled a graceless frog, she moved her arms in some imitation of correct form away from the edge of the water. With a shock, the cold seemed into her bloodstream through the pores in her skin as she struggled to make forward progress even as the current as so intent on pulling her to her left, down, down, down beyond the wall, down into a depth inside the temple she hadn't been able to see before-the terminus of the current. Something she _really_ didn't much want to think about-

Pushing herself up to the surface for a moment, she gasped for air like a fish, sputtering as her mouth filled with nasty, brackish water, feeling her resolve flag as the water flooded her nostrils- _not high enough, not high enough-_

She began to flail her arms then, trying to get _just_ a few more centimeters of height, feeling an acute sense of panic tear through her lungs as she strained upwards. Hiccuplike, she coughed out out water in an attempt to clear her windpipe, feeling the current begin to drag her deeper to where the water grew darker, where the night-vision lenses could no longer penetrate- _no, no, no-_

-slipping below the surface again, boots scraping aimlessly for a floor that had become even lower and missing entirely. With a rush she felt herself thrown head over feet like a boneless doll as her senses began to fail her, the goggles filling up with water-

-she couldn't see. She couldn't see. She couldn't _breathe_ and it was so _small_ and _tight_ and she couldn't _breathe_ -nothing she did seemed to make the space around her expand, give her room to think, to recollect, to find a way _out_ -the water ruthlessly scrambling the strength from her limbs. She couldn't _move_ , she couldn't _move_ -

-she was back underground, and it was _dark_ and she could no longer feel her own hands and feet as connected to her body, and she couldn't _get out_ _get out get out-_

A tiny, hoarse scream sounded in the back of her mind then, something like a fragile child's voice turned animalistic with fright, with rage, with _desperation_. This fear was the kind that meant humanity no longer _mattered_ , that the suffering and the escape thereof were enough to strip that away in the hunger for survival-

 _No._

 _-it's not the same, it's not the same, dammit-_

Finding one last burst of anger to give her strength, she moved one hand through the water to her belt. Shaking fingers found the ends of her whip, shoving the other through the water to find _something_ to hold onto, something to _stop_ her from being dragged down fully-

-she almost hissed in pain as her fingers brushed against something sharp and hard- _a rock-a part of a low-lying wall-_

-biting her lip through the discomfort, she grabbed aimlessly at the protruding wall, digging her nails into the gritty surface as it scraped into her palm. Still she held on, knowing she'd undoubtedly been cut and was getting the water into the cut, her arm muscles roaring with the strain as she gripped herself in place. Then, feet kicking off the wall for momentum, she began to climb upwards towards the surface of the water-towards _air_ -

 _-one-_

 _-two-_

 _-three-_

 _-four-_

 _-five-_

 _-six-_

 _-seven-_

 _-eight-_

 _-nine-_

 _-ten-_

As soon as the hand holding the whip punched above the current, she once again offered a prayer to whomever was observing this farce of a scene, this time perhaps a _mite_ more sincerely than she had previously. With a flick of her wrist, she let the thin end of the whip fly through the air, _hoping, hoping, hoping_ that it would catch onto _something_ -a boulder or cornice or _something-_

-her heart rate staggered, blinkingly frail, the beating already gone to a murmur, as she tugged on the whip half-heartedly, not daring to expect-

 _-resistance. Thank the Gods_ -

She'd gotten a way _out_.

Using her battered other hand and feet in tandem, she rappelled off the rock wall and pulled the whip taut, beginning to move her hands up along its length like a rope, feeling the water attempt to drag her along again. She pushed the rawness of her hands to the back of her mind as the material of the whip sliced into her palms further-but she was _doing it_ , she was _doing it_ -even through the water in her goggles she could make out some kind of light as she neared the surface-

The cold, damp air, once she felt it hit the tips of her ears, was so _beautiful_ she nearly wanted to cry. Her ribs, then hips, soon collided with what felt like the other side of the river; giving the whip one last heaving tug, she hauled herself out of the water for good, retching up what felt like liters of the stuff. Feeling thoroughly bedraggled and rather trampled, she struggled to gain control of her breathing, to move it to a slower rate to avoid hyperventilating, heart and blood thudding thickly and excitedly in her ears.

The blood on the skin of her hands flashed a blurry red as she yanked the goggles from her eyes. Suppressing a whimper, she let go of the whip, rolling onto her back and waiting for the weight of it all to hit her. The adrenaline still was punching its way through her body even as she'd never felt more exhausted in all her life, her soaking clothes surely doubling her weight as she focused on inhaling through her nose, exhaling through her mouth-none of the pain from her wounds or strain on her muscles hitting her quite yet, allowing this small moment of respite.

The innocuous burbling of the current now sounded like petty laughter as the sensation returned to her limbs. At least she felt eyes blinking away the last traces of water, then renewing with frustrated tears as she began gently testing her movement range, flexing her fingers, then wrist joints, elbows, the musculature of the arms and back, her neck, her hips, knees, ankles-

- _so far, nothing seems broken_ -

 _-the cuts aren't too deep, thank the Gods-Rebecca should be able to take care of them when I get back to her-_

She rolled to one side and pushed herself into a seated position, hissing at the jolts of discomfort that wracked her form. Her gaze followed the dangling end of her whip to where it had thankfully gotten caught, allowing her to get out of the blasted water in the first place. Strangely, she'd managed to snag it on what looked like a small, vaguely triangular sculptural form nearly a meter high carved out of smooth rock that had been, curiously enough, merely sitting on the ground on the other side of the current from where she'd entered the water.

-but a _heavy_ sculpture at that, Ishizu reasoned, frowning slightly to herself as she pushed herself onto all fours and crawled over to the sculpture to take a closer look. It was a seated male figure, covered in dust, rather similar to the golden Buddha she'd been looking to recover in the first place. The whip's length had wrapped itself around the figure's midsection, her efforts to pull herself out of the water having moved the figure a few centimeters from where it had been sitting, judging by the way the dust had collected on the ground around the sculpture's base-

Ishizu wiped her hands on her ruined khakis and set to removing the whip, then, teeth sinking into her lower lip from the effort of it, used her shoulders and back to nudge the figure back to where it had been-

-as soon as the sculpture was back in its original position, Ishizu nearly jumped at the _growling_ sound that echoed throughout the dim cavern, then, oddly enough, found herself squinting against a sudden, warm stream of-

-light?

- _a doorway? A secret doorway-_

 _-could it have been opened by my moving the figure?_

She rubbed at her tired eyes with pruny fingers, willing them to adjust to the change in brightness, until she found the source of the light-

-a doorway about two whole meters high carved _into the rock wall_ of the temple itself only a few paces behind the little smiling sculpture, leading to what looked like another room-

 _-a secret room?_

 _-No._

 _The sanctuary of the temple itself-_

Hardly daring to believe it, Ishizu rose to her feet slowly, cautiously, backing towards where her goggles lay on the banks of the current. She resisted the urge to pinch herself, unwilling to look away from this discovery, in case it was merely some wild dream, a hallucination of a deoxygenated brain-

Looking to regroup, she bent down and picked up the likely now-useless goggles, shaking the remaining droplets from them. Wryly she fought the urge to groan at how much it was going to cost the team to replace them, and shoved them into a pocket of her still-dripping jacket.

She moved forward once more, steps lifting tiny clouds of dust, towards the mysterious light streaming through the blasted _secret doorway_ in this truly _magnificent_ temple-

 _-it_ is _the sanctuary._

She couldn't help but revel in every detail as she took it in-the high, lofty ceiling of the interior tower that made itself visible to her as she entered, the small gaps in the stonework leaking in warmth and light from the now mid-morning sun, tiny motes of dust combing through and soaring ever upwards. Heart rate picking up to the point of lightheadedness, Ishizu felt herself positively shiver for reasons that had nothing to do with the chill of her clothes.

 _My Gods-I've made it-I've truly made it-_

She took a deep breath then, hoping to slow the rattling of her overexcited heart, and failed. She swept her gaze over the sanctuary, the grin growing wider and wider as her gaze alighted on the small sculpture she'd been hoping to find for her team-the small smiling Buddha, hands laid gracefully into the meditative gestures in its lap.

 _-just as we suspected-it's here-_

The icon sat against one wall of the sanctuary, illuminated by a rather dramatic single ray of light from the other side of the room, on a slightly raised platform. Covered as it was by numerous layers of dust, the figure still managed to convey a true sense of divinity.

If she'd had the time, she would have taken a moment to close her eyes and imagine how it must have been in this chamber so long ago-while in an active temple there would have been candles, flowers, and other tokens placed before it, this Buddha had clearly not been touched all these years. The cloth it likely once wore draped about its frame like a monk's robe had long since degraded like any other organic matter.

But she'd already been gone long enough-surely Rebecca and the others would be eagerly awaiting her return. Romanticizing would have to be put on hold.

 _I hope my gloves didn't fall out in the river_ -

Tentatively reaching into another interior pocket of her jacket, she dug around half-heartedly, knowing it was already a lost cause. The gloves were gone-the canteen she'd been wearing as well, she noted dazedly, taking another few steps towards the Buddha-

 _I guess I'm going to be doing this the old-fashioned way-_

In the blink of an eye, everything shifted, stealing the breath from her lungs like a twisting vise.

It filled her nose before she could cover it, even think to block it out-a nauseating, roiling dark fog that stung at her eyes, filling the room impossibly quickly, obscuring all corners of her sight, the idol winking at her from across the room before being engulfed-

 _-a booby-trap? Did I trip up something-knock into another sculpture-was I not careful enough?_

A cry skipped up her throat and came out broken and small. Willing her thoughts not to scatter, she retraced her steps mentally, praying that whatever substance had flooded the sanctuary was not toxic, didn't contain dangerous particles or fragments of _something_ that would nestle into her lungs and kill her from within, either quickly or slowly, painfully-

 _-no-I didn't-I couldn't have-something else must have happened-_

 _-I did not drown in the bloody river and I will not drown now-_

As she fruitlessly waved her hands through the smoke, hoping desperately to be able to clear her vision before it was too late, _too late_ , a familiar dark chuckle echoing around the walls of the sanctuary sent a chill down her spine, shocking her skin into gooseflesh. Her mouth went bone-dry with dread despite the beads of water still lingering on her face.

 _No. It can't be-_

"R-Ryou-" she began witlessly, already feeling her heart sink in her chest, eyes watering from the acrid cloud as the room before her began to clear. Already knowing her worst suspicions had been confirmed: he'd gotten there first. Or at least-gotten there _better_ , and was going to get away with the Buddha figure, despite it all, despite her best efforts and careful planning-

"Doctor Ishtar, I assume?"

His voice was low and mocking, the faint _tsk_ of false sympathy lying behind perfectly white teeth, teeth that were bared in a grimace-like smile as the last of the smoke cleared. His pale brown eyes glittered with contempt as he regarded her, her dripping clothes and shoes, the muck in her hair, the cuts on her hands, the rings around her eyes from the goggles. The work she'd done was all too visible and completely useless, given that the golden icon she'd sought was now nestled in his hands.

"Who else?" he murmured wryly, answering his own rhetorical question.

-eyes that had been familiar in what seemed like an eternity ago, when that smile had felt more like an embrace and less of a gut punch as it did now-

He, for his part, looked rather impeccable for someone who'd made it to the underground sanctuary of an ancient temple. His clothing was the same style as hers, the khaki pants and button-down and boots and utility belt all present and accounted for. Where Ishizu preferred her old leather jacket, a tribute to an old movie she'd seen as a teenager, Bakura was clad in some prohibitively expensive high-tech temperature-modulating coat, likely courtesy of some generous shadowy employer.

Ishizu felt that unnerving coagulation of ice and rage slice through her, all bloody and raw, as she regarded the man before her, as she had so many times prior. A drop of sweat made its way down the side of her face as she tried to stop the trembling of her hands. Tried to stop him from seeing the effect that it all had on her-the hurt that she managed to keep from her face, from thickening her voice with tears.

 _Damn it-not this again-_

It was always like this, it seemed-for the last several years, at the very least. This circling, this competition, this disheartening clash of skills and goals that had begun when Ryou Bakura, her former colleague and occasional expedition partner, had had a sudden change of heart and decided that there was more pleasure to be had in recovering these artifacts, these unfathomable treasures of history and time, for the well-heeled and greedy rather than for the people to whom they truly belonged.

It had been a shock to her system when the formerly mild-mannered archeology student had undergone such a dramatic shift in priorities. When, on a particularly dangerous recovery expedition several years prior, he'd cruelly divested himself of her and their team of researchers and made off with millions of dollars' worth of tomb jewelry and disappeared for a month, leaving Ishizu and their half-finished project behind and in tatters.

Ever since then, it had been as it was at this moment-the two of them pitted against one another, racing for the same treasures, the same relics, and always coming down to moments like this, it seemed, more and more often. Moments where, by virtue of better funding-or by magic or some trick of the occult, if Ishizu didn't know any better-and a disturbing disregard for collateral damage-Bakura managed to triumph over her in the end. The artifacts in question falling all too often into the hands-and private collections-of those with deep pockets who would never appreciate their significance. Ishizu and the local governments of whatever city or village she'd been partnering with left empty-handed and souring with defeat.

 _Every time, the Ryou I knew seems to fade further into the past-despite the money he must be earning doing this, it's never enough for him-_

 _-it's like the Ryou I knew never existed at all-_

"Once again, my dear colleague, you've lost," Bakura continued, his eyes now bright with mirth as he flicked his gaze from her to the icon and then back again, undoubtedly aware of both the seething fury and ice-cold sorrow lurching through her, threatening to unmake her. He'd known her so well-her face was likely an open book to him still.

"We are _not_ colleagues, Ryou," Ishizu managed, the venom in her voice tasting bitter on her tongue.

Bakura shrugged lazily, giving the sculpture one more greedy once-over before tucking it into the rucksack dangling from his shoulder. "Well, then, _former_ colleagues, if you're going to be so _pedantic_ about it."

Ishizu swallowed down the urge to strangle him and just take the damned artifact for once- _blasted, bloody principles_ -

"I'll be as _pedantic_ as I want, Ryou." She began to cast her eyes about the room once more, darting quick glances at the walls, the ceiling, the floor- _how could he have gotten here when I was most certainly alone? Is there another entrance I missed?_

 _-either way, I need to get that icon from him-_

"After all, you lost the right to put yourself on equal terms with me when you decided that money was more important than what we worked for." Keeping her voice low and steady, she made a show of bending down on one knee to fiddle with the laces of her boots with one hand. Positioning her body carefully, she used the cover of her too-large jacket to hide her other hand as she carefully unhooked the whip from her belt from the side where Bakura couldn't see her. Her fingers silently skimmed along the rope to find the handle as she willed her face to remain expressionless even as the material of the whip licked acidly at her cuts-

 _-easy, steady now-_

Bakura rolled his eyes, his motions briefly going sharp with some unknown tension as he brushed some invisible dust off his clothes, the rucksack sliding to the side of his torso. "Not _this_ again, _Doctor Ishtar_ ," he began, her title dripping from his lips like some phlegmy curse, the incongruity of his carefree, almost placid facial expression and strained body language giving Ishizu pause for a moment.

She readied her hold on the whip-a quick sweep of her eyes confirming the location of her target-then of the corridor back to the entrance, just past where he stood-

"Your _childish_ and _naive_ view of our profession notwithstanding, I-"

 _-CRACK!-_

With a practiced flick of her wrist, Ishizu let the whip fly forward, the end of the braided rope hitting its mark perfectly, coiling around the mouth of the rucksack before she yanked it back towards her. Bakura's smug expression flashed into a mask of shock and anger as his arm was nearly pulled out of its socket as the rucksack whirled back towards her, out of the coil of the whip, back into Ishizu's arms-

-tucking the rucksack under her free arm, she released the whip again, the sound ringing out in the cavernous sanctuary like a shot as it coiled around Bakura's extended arm, sealing tightly even over the thick jacket. Bakura's grimace briefly, horrifyingly shifting to something far less mundane as Ishizu pulled the whip back again hard, causing Bakura to stumble to his knees-

"Not so fast, Doctor Ishtar!" Bakura spat out, his voice suddenly gone chilling, loud, echoing impossibly loudly and reverberating through Ishizu's body almost violently. Ishizu made to pull the whip back to her, to make her getaway-

-just brush past him, through the passageway and back to where Rebecca was waiting-

-and she couldn't move. Hand still extended mid-flick, feet suddenly anchored to the ground as if nails had been driven through them to hold her in place-

"Ryou-" Ishizu tried to scream, then tried to scream again as she found that her lips wouldn't move, vocal cords seeming to freeze in her throat, only her eyes left to move freely. Pinned, helpless, she could only watch Bakura with mounting terror shivering through her, watch as his chest began to glow with a strange golden light, a light that somehow shone through his clothing, a beacon that soon lit up his face with its ghoulish expression in pure _chiaroscuro_ as all light and warmth in the sanctuary were snuffed out like the blowing of a candle-

 _-what in the name of the Gods-_

 _-what in blazes is going on-_

 _-what is happening-_

 _-have I gone mad-_

That same chuckle again that had alerted her to his presence in the first place making her very bones rattle.

"Oh yes, Doctor Ishtar. You might have your _archaic_ little toys, your silly little assistant, but I've got something far better than _money_ on my side in all of this…"

His voice turned to a silky snarl as he approached her frozen form, gently lifting the rucksack out of her grasp and replacing it on his back. His eyes had gone practically _feral_ , half-closed as he regarded her with something Ishizu couldn't name, something more than loathing-something that couldn't possibly be _human_ -

"I _really_ shouldn't be letting you live this time, Doctor Ishtar." His voice was a raspy purr, teeth looking almost _pointed_ -

Ishizu's heart stopped, one final, sickening thud resonating in her ears before it succumbed to what felt like pure fright-

-and then he was gone, the golden glow from his chest completely vanished along with his nightmare-like form, as the natural light in the sanctuary gradually re-emerged. Ishizu felt herself almost choke on her breath as the sensation returned to her body, her arms going slack and trembling, legs collapsing beneath her from the sudden, almost joyous release of the strain they'd been under-a rush of relief almost making her lose her breakfast, despite the anger at having failed to protect the icon from Bakura-

 _-thank the Gods, I'm alive-I-I'm alive-_

-A final echoing sneer cutting across her thoughts like a blade-

"-but it's always so _amusing_ to have you try and stop me."


End file.
